Qualitative behavior of solutions for thermodynamically consistent Stefan problems with surface tension

The qualitative behavior of a thermodynamically consistent two-phase Stefan problem with surface tension and with or without kinetic undercooling is studied. It is shown that these problems generate local semiflows in well-defined state manifolds. If a solution does not exhibit singularities in a sense made precise below, it is proved that it exists globally in time and its orbit is relatively compact. In addition, stability and instability of equilibria is studied. In particular, it is shown that multiple spheres of the same radius are unstable, reminiscent of the onset of Ostwald ripening.Comment: 56 pages. Expanded introduction, added references. This revised version is published in Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. (207) (2013), 611-66

Global stability of steady states in the classical Stefan problem

The classical one-phase Stefan problem (without surface tension) allows for a continuum of steady state solutions, given by an arbitrary (but sufficiently smooth) domain together with zero temperature. We prove global-in-time stability of such steady states, assuming a sufficient degree of smoothness on the initial domain, but without any a priori restriction on the convexity properties of the initial shape. This is an extension of our previous result [28] in which we studied nearly spherical shapes.Comment: 14 pages. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1212.142

On thermodynamically consistent Stefan problems with variable surface energy

A thermodynamically consistent two-phase Stefan problem with temperature-dependent surface tension and with or without kinetic undercooling is studied. It is shown that these problems generate local semiflows in well-defined state manifolds. If a solution does not exhibit singularities, it is proved that it exists globally in time and converges towards an equilibrium of the problem. In addition, stability and instability of equilibria is studied. In particular, it is shown that multiple spheres of the same radius are unstable if surface heat capacity is small; however, if kinetic undercooling is absent, they are stable if surface heat capacity is sufficiently large.Comment: To appear in Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00205-015-0938-y. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1101.376